It's My Blog

Here's a Google map of all of the reported Swine Flu cases.

And here's a map you'll never see in the news:

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Posted by Tom on 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

The news is ridiculous these days. The media are so far in the corner of the Democrats that you might as well just call them Ministries of Public Enlightenment. I've tried not to listen to much news because it simply drives a sane person crazy but there are a few things that I just can't help but remark about:

1) Arlen Specter has defected to the Democrat party (USSA) - This is great news. Now if he could just take the rest of the Republicans with him. I wish all Republicans at the federal level would just go ahead and call themselves what they really are: spineless (aka Democrat.) If they all turned into Ds then maybe we'd have a shot at fielding a decent competing party that stood up for life, liberty, and property rights.

2) Obama continues running against Bush - it's amazing that this guy just won't stop campaigning. The race is over! It's 2009! I mean not only is he releasing all sorts of top secret memos but in true campaign style he's *not* releasing the full memos. That's right, amongst all those "evil" acts as pouring water in the terrorist's face and putting the terrorist in a cage with a "ferocious" caterpillar, there were actually reports on the successful results of these interrogations. However, including the measurements of the successes of these "torture" sessions would have sent a mixed message, so Obama's propagandists took them out. Then they decided to go for a photo op in a 747 1000 feet above New York City.... the campaign continues...

3) Run for cover, it's the swine flu - in all the hysteria over the new flu outbreak the media is trying to scare the shit out of us all, with help from members of the Obama administration, using mainly statistics from mass deaths in Mexico from a particular strain of the flu. I can only assume that the purpose of all of this fear is to assert that we have to act and we have to act now, I mean now that the financial crisis is over (hahahaha, right) Obama has to have another crisis to use. So now we have this flu, Obama and his propagandists will push on full force for communist medicine. Have you stopped to ask yourself this though: why is it that nobody has died in America even though we have a lot of cases reported? ... could it be that the reason so many in Mexico are dying is because they have nationalized health care? Could it? You won't hear the media ask this question.

Labels: economy, life, politics

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Posted by Tom on 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Or more accurately, should I hold or should I sell?

Here are a couple of positions I've entered recently and now I'm faced with the age old dilemma of trying to pick the best time to take profits and exit the position. You want to "ride the winners" so you don't want to sell too soon, but you also don't want to get overly greedy and watch the profits evaporate on the pullback. So, that being said, let's take a look at the positions:

XRX - Xerox
This stock is hammering out a bottom and has generated a clear reversal signal in the upward breakout of a triangle pattern. As a result of those signals, when the price was $5.30, I went ahead and bought MAY 09 6 CALL @.20, fully expecting the price to reach and exceed $6 before options expiration in May.

(click for larger image)

The reasoning for this is that $6 is still below the longer term descending trend, so the price shouldn't meet resistance before then. In addition, there is an earnings report coming out on the 24th, which may cause the price to gap in one direction or the other. Currently, the price of those calls has gone up to $0.45, or a profit of $25 per option contract (ignoring commissions.) There is nothing on the chart to indicate that the target of $6 will not be met soon, which would raise the price of the options further. There is indication though that the price won't go much above $6 if the resistance holds true. At this precarious point it's hard to know what's going to happen, so should you play it safe or gamble on the breakout?

Here's what I'll probably do: when the price of XRX makes a new high right around the $6 range I will liquidate a percentage of my position to cover the initial cost of the investment, not to exceed 50% of the calls. Then I'll hold the rest of the calls through earnings and hope for the gap up to break the long term declining trendline. If I am wrong and the stock gaps down on earnings (bouncing off the resistance) then I won't lose any money, but I also won't gain any.

ZION - Zion Bank Corporation
This stock has completed an inverse head and shoulders breakout and retracement and is headed for the sky. As such, I bought call options on the retracement when the price was $12.50: MAY 09 17.5 CALL @.35. This company is also coming up on an earnings release, but since the stock has already broken out of a pattern and a down trend I'm not really worried about it. Even if the stock goes down on earnings I think it will have the strength to quickly rebound.

(click for larger version)

Again, there is no reason to believe that this current uptrend will reverse, but the question is: which target should I use? The target of the H&S breakout is $19, but if you look at the more long term downward trend breakout and use Fibonacci retracement levels, there is also a target at $20 (38.2%) and $25 (50%) so where should I liquidate the position to maximize profits?

What I will probably do is simply cut it 50/50 and sell half of my calls when the stock price reaches $19 for a profit of $250 per call. Then sell the rest of the calls when the price reaches a new high or if it miraculously reaches $25. If the new high was somewhere around say $21, that would be a profit of $400 per call, and if it actually does make it to $25 that would be a profit of over $700 per call.

If I'm totally wrong about both of these stocks then I will have lost my initial investment in calls of about $20 each. When you look at the potential upside and the probability of it happening, the investment is well worth it. Even if I'm only right now and then, the overall profit will far outweigh the loss. Not all of my picks have been winners so far but most have them have either covered their initial cost or made a pretty good profit. I hope some of my current picks will work out to be homeruns but that will only happen if I ride the winners.

Labels: options, XRX, ZION

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Posted by Tom on 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

In my previous post I included a video that clearly demonstrated the stark difference in the CNN coverage of the Chicago Tea Party and the reality of the situation as filmed by people who were there. Youtube has now removed that video citing "copyright" claims of CNN. Yeah, I'm sure that's why they took it down. Funny how you can find thousands if not millions of clips on youtube from Fox News posted by liberal lackeys like Media Matters.

Labels: politics

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Posted by Tom on 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

and of course, you'll never see this on the news:


I love how the stooge called the protesters "right wing extremists" and completely ignored the sign right next to her that said "Republicans suck too."

I guess CNN is so bitter because of this:
Total viewers Wednesday from 8:00 to 11:00 PM:

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000

Viewership for specific shows:

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
COMEDY DAILY SHOW 1,777,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
COMEDY COLBERT 1,446,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

Source: Nealz Nuze

Labels: politics

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Posted by Tom on 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I believe America is controlled by Banking interests who's method has been for the last two centuries to keep the people in a form of indentured servitude through taxation, debts, and inflation. I have come to this hypothesis after reading through books about the development of the Constitution and about the philosophy of Patrick Henry and other Anti-Statists. I will continue researching and logically analyzing history to see if this hypothesis is correct.

Food for thought though: Thanks to Ronald Reagan, our economy had a great run of 20 years or so and many Americans became more prosperous and more wealthy than at any previous point in history. This represented a threat to the Aristocratic class that enjoys most of the economic and political power in this country, so they devised a plan to smack us all back down to the level of slaves like they had enjoyed for so long. This plan included laws to force local and regional banks to lend money to people who couldn't ever expect to pay it back (indentured servitude,) it included ramping up the prices of commodities through overzealous government regulation, it included easing restrictions on large banking institutions so that they could trade debt in ways they had never done before, and finally it included Trillions of Dollars in paper money being used to "save" the very banks that caused all of this, under the guise of crisis.

Apparently not enough Americans had fallen for the bait of collateral and ability free loans to satisfy these bankers, so they had to ramp it up a notch by manufacturing this "crisis" and requiring the Federal Government to print massive amounts of money. Now, instead of a few unwise Americans being in crushing debt because of bad decisions, we are ALL in massive debt due to bad government, and impending inflation will reduce our ability to pay it off.

Sadly, "crisis" is something they've used for hundreds of years, dating back to the revolutionary war, to push through policies that are direct attacks on Liberty. In fact, during the formation of the Constitution, the radically centralized and non-republican new government was deemed totally necessary to prevent "crisis." The crisis they were referring to was farmer revolts by people who couldn't pay their massive debts to banks who had drastically inflated the currency of the day yet wouldn't accept payment in the form of paper money. Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it?

Labels: economy, life, politics

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Posted by Tom on 8:46 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Will anything get better? In case you haven't noticed, or if you only watch CNN or NBC, etc, there have been many massive protests across the country today to protest the tyrannical and oppressive federal government. The protesters include Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, and everyone else. The protesters are the people who I like to call the "producers" as opposed to the "takers" who feed off of the average hard working American, and who all politicians cater to.

Now, while I think this is great and I wish I wasn't on a business trip so I could have gone to the one in my town, I do pause to wonder what good is actually going to come of this? Are people going to wake up and realize the liberty that we've forfeited over the last 100 to 200 years? Sure, the pace has quickened in the last 6 months as we've all been committed to perpetual indentured servitude but this erosion of our natural rights has been going on for a long time. Are we going to revolt and overthrow/dissolve the federal government? Or are we just going to elect another round of corrupt Republicrats who are still going to steal our lives and our loves, just under the guise of different causes?

It's time for a little lesson courtesy of Patrick Henry, the American Nostradamus:

"What, sir, is the genius of democracy? Let me read that clause of the bill of rights of Virginia which relates to this: 3d clause: — that government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community. Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-administration; and that whenever any government shall be found inadequate, or contrary to those purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal.

This, sir, is the language of democracy — that a majority of the community have a right to alter government when found to be oppressive. But how different is the genius of your new Constitution from this! How different from the sentiments of freemen, that a contemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority! If, then, gentlemen, standing on this ground, are come to that point, that they are willing to bind themselves and their posterity to be oppressed, I am amazed and inexpressibly astonished. If this be the opinion of the majority, I must submit; but to me, sir, it appears perilous and destructive. I cannot help thinking so. Perhaps it may be the result of my age. These may be feelings natural to a man of my years, when the American spirit has left him, and his mental powers, like the members of the body, are decayed. If, sir, amendments are left to the twentieth, or tenth part of the people of America, your liberty is gone forever…"

The Federal government has become exactly the monster that Henry feared. We must act now to reverse this course. Hopefully we can avoid bloodshed, and hopefully we can avoid going down this road again.

Labels: life, politics

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Posted by Tom on 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

So I don't have time to make a video but I wanted to post a quick update on my EBAY options. If you recall, I purchased puts on the touch of an upper trendline expecting the price to fall. Unfortunately, the price entered a flag formation which is a sign of a trend continuation rather than reversal. So, I countered by purchasing calls converting my original long puts position into a long strangle. As you can see by the chart below, I was correct, and I ended up making a slight profit (30%), instead of an outright loss.

(click for larger version)

Labels: economy, options

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Posted by Tom on 10:21 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

So, I haven't been posting much lately other than Stock Option stuff. Honestly, the news has been so bad lately and politics has been so ridiculous that I just have nothing to say. I mean how are you supposed to talk about calculus when everybody in the world is still debating that 1+1=3?

For example, take a look at this video:


Now take a listen to the news. All they can talk about is how the massive deregulation of business has led to this "crisis." In fact, it is obvious that the problem was, and always has been, government intervention into the free market. Then when a part of the government said "hey wait, we need to reign in this government intervention" another part of the government said "oh no way, there's nothing at all wrong with this system!" and now those people are in charge of "fixing" the mess we're in. Now, I admit, there were some dumb deals going on between banks. Credit default swaps were too good to be true, and they did end up biting the banks. However, the only reason they were ever profitable was the housing bubble, and the only reason the housing bubble happened was government intervention into the free market.

The key point here is that the government does nothing but screw the people. No matter what they say, no matter who's in charge, the government does nothing but make a mess and then later down the road they blame someone else for doing it and say that they're going to save the day now if we just give them some more time (votes.)

Long story short, I'm done with the government. I have reached the point that I think we just need to disband the federal government completely. I might even go so far as to say that we should have no government at all but I think we can at least start with having only state and local government. One of these days I hope people realize that we don't need the government, we've been tricked into thinking we need them to take care of us. The government takes care of us like a farmer takes care of hogs: he keeps them alive just long enough to lead them off to slaughter. That is our future if we keep the government running.

Labels: life, politics

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Posted by Tom on 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post